Red Revelations
by Traveler of Worlds
Summary: Dear Mister Jane. It seems I have yet to get through to you. I think you need another reminder of what happens to those who cross me, as you don't appear to have learned to fear me as you should..." Warning, unpleasant topics.


**Red Revelations**

_In dedication to all the Jisbon terriers in this fandom. Thank you to my wonderful English teacher for betaing._

It had been a bad night. Hell, it had been a bad week. It always was, this time of year. Jane had stayed up, flicking through obscure cable channels somewhere in the five hundreds and glancing at the clock every two minutes, waiting for it to get late enough to go to work. In the gray light of dawn, he'd made his excuses to the custodian, who'd grumbled in Spanish as he'd opened the gate. Jane checked the clock above the elevator. Six o' clock, not bad. He'd once stumbled in at four thirty and simply waited on the curb until Manuel arrived. He groped the wall at shoulder height, found the switch and snapped it. Light flooded into the empty bull-pen and Jane ambled toward his couch, wanting nothing more than to stare at the ceiling and fall into if not sleep, than at least a haze.

He wouldn't have noticed but for the color. He might have passed Lisbon's office without so much as glance had it been for the red, and the date, and the lingering, heavy emotion that clouded his every step today of all days. And then of course, the note.

Dear Mister Jane,

It seems I have yet to get through to you. I think you need another reminder of what happens to those who cross me, as you don't appear to have learned to fear me as you should. Maybe Jared Renfrew was not a sufficient target. Maybe Emma Plaskett's death was irrelevant as well. But I would have thought you'd remember and take heed of your family's tragedy. Unfortunately, it seems that everywhere you turn, you endanger someone else.

He barely recalled the mad drive, back through the quiet and peacefully sleeping Sacramento suburb that rested entirely unaware that the world, what was left of it anyway, was ending. He'd found a key ring on Lisbon's desk, his key ring. The backtracking race was a blur. He burst out of the car but stopped dead on the porch. His heart pounded painfully in his chest, his head swam. Then, numbly, Jane opened the door and stepped inside.

The sacrosanct march began. Despite the current situation, and because of it, there were rules that must be followed, laws of anguished and dreaded respect that existed within the frozen house. As though wading through mud he climbed the staircase, passed the wall without pictures, down the hall that left him breathless, and paused, as always, at the door. He pushed it open and was two steps inside when the pain hit. A crackle as the tazer's prongs plunged into his side. _Fool. _He hadn't even thought to find a knife. Ignored the detailed, well thought out plan in favor of blind panic.

"Lisbon?" he croaked, wincing.

He saw no body, nobody ha ha, and now the tazer had messed with his head because where was Red John, why didn't he just show himself, at least then it would all be blessedly over. In his mind her corpse lay splayed, pale and drenched in red. He spun out of control, after shocks still numbing.

"_Lisbon!"_ More desperate now.

"Jane? Are you here?"

He almost died of shock and relief then, he'd expected the phone voice that had laughed in Tijuana. To Lisbon, her voice strained but very much alive, was worth the pain for instant.

"Lisbon are you hurt, where are you?" He could hear breathing in the darkness.

"I'm right hear Jane." Teresa Lisbon stepped out of the shadows, unhurt and clutching something in her hand. Something that shone in the moonlight filtering in through the window. A steak knife, gleaming and sharp.

"Lisbon, what…?"

She smiled over him. "Do you understand now, Patrick? I've bee with you all along. Guiding you, manipulating you, drawing you towards this moment."

The air left his chest as though he'd been struck.

"Red John?"

"Correct as always Jane, but this time the pieces come together too late."

He was numb, in shock no doubt, from the tazer. He hadn't slept in weeks, and the race from CBI headquarters had sent his blood pressure straight up.

"How."

There was no emotion in his voice. He couldn't move his arms, let alone exact the revenge he'd been planning for so many years.

"How?" she asked indulgently, still grinning absurdly as she pulled out a black plastic tie. She straddled him, pulling his arms behind his back and cinching the tie before straightening up. "Easily. As a law enforcement official, I had all the training I needed. You know how easy it is to mask or create a paper trail. My poor mother who died so young. My drunken train wreck of a father, who killed himself when I was seventeen and left me with two brothers to raise. My father is alive and well and lives in Nashville, last I heard."

"What about Tijuana?" he murmured, his mind racing.

"All it took was an hour," she said. "I slipped away while the jurisdiction was handed over to CBI. You know what international cases are like. Messy. The 'He is Man' was a nice touch, a personal joke, if you will."

"The phone call?"

"Ah the cryptic phone call. Have you any idea of how many people in Mexico are desperate enough to accept $500 in American money and make a phone call at a specified time? It makes no difference to someone that dirt poor to chuckle ominously into a throw away cell phone and hang up as long I pay up, which I did."

"And Dumar Tanner? What was he?"

"Dumar was a thug who would murder his own mother for the right price. But he was a good actor, wasn't he? He convinced the great Patrick Jane."

"But he died for you."

"Oh no, he didn't die for me. But you wrapped things up quite nicely for me," Red John said. "The original plan was for him take me hostage and escape with me. He was a loose end. I would kill him, then return to you and plead self defense. Why do you think he had a handcuff key? But I must admit, your way really was much cleaner." Red John smiled still as she leaned over Jane with the knife still clenched in her hand.

"I trusted you," he said, almost to himself.

"Of course. The poor, damaged, brilliant man and his equally scarred but healing supervisor. I was infuriated by you, constantly saving you from yourself and putting my own ass on the line in the process. I was so determined to heal you, to save you from the revenge quest that would destroy you however it turned out. Of course no one would suspect that I had caused your downfall in the first place. And now we come to today," she finished. "The anniversary of your family's slaughter and, if I remember correctly," she pretended to ponder, "your daughter's birthday." Jane then lunged, and Red John laughed as she plunged the knife into his throat.

The turnout was spectacular, more than anyone had imagined, certainly more people than Jane would have liked at his funeral, but he'd gathered many fans in his lifetime that a certain amount was hardly surprising. But nobody had expected the vast crowd that had amassed to pay their respects. There was even media coverage. Those who watched the four CBI agents who spoke and were the only pallbearers would later agree that this final murder was indeed incredibly tragic. An entire family wiped out by one man. The few who had known Jane after the event, the four pallbearers, were the epitome of grief. As the casket was lowered, Agent Wayne Rigsby put his arms around Agent Grace Van Pelt's shoulders and she leaned her head against his shoulders. Agent Kimball Cho clenched his fists and stared straight ahead, refusing to watch. His hands trembled. And as they each tossed a handful of earth onto the casket, Agent Teresa Lisbon wept for the world to see.

**End**

A/N: I had to be the first in this fandom to write a Lisbon is Red John fic. Tell me how I did. Any feedback, good, bad or ugly is appreciated.


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